Читать книгу In Singapore - Clarence Stratton - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Years later, when Thomas visited Calcutta the second time, he realized that he had seen most of it before, but there remained in his remembrance only a blurred and confused impression of that first day of rushing hither and thither in a city as unreal as the capital of Fairyland.

He had tried to prepare himself for strange and astonishing sights, but nothing we see in anticipation is like the sight itself. Thomas caught glimpses of the glowing embers and curling wisps of smoke that marked the burning of the faithful dead on the sacred steps. He saw the countless bathers in the holy water of the Ganges and had a passing recollection of the sunburnt bodies of American pleasure-seekers at a crowded beach on a scorching August afternoon. But these bathers were not acquiring a fashionable coat of tan; they were just naturally brown-skinned. Nor were they bathing for comfort or pleasure in the heat; they were carrying out a serious religious duty.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” he remarked to his sprightly young guide, “but that water doesn’t look very clean to me.”

The energetic young British colonial who had taken charge of him upon the deck of the Portlander merely grunted.

“Wait till you see the way cows are treated,” was his puzzling response.

He took Thomas along back streets that he might see how venerated the American domestic drudge was. Cows—to a normal boy always the most silly and awkward and brainless of country live stock—wandered aimlessly along the sidewalks. When weariness overtook them they flopped down in the middle of the busiest streets. No merchant drove them from before his shop. No hurrying pedestrian kicked their flanks to make a way. Fine ladies walked carefully around them. Automobiles jammed on their brakes to avoid striking them. Delivery carts turned aside to pass without disturbing them.

Never in his wildest dreams had Thomas seen such an annoyance to traffic in a large city. Open-eyed and open-mouthed, he turned to young Smithers.

“Sacred!” explained that young gentleman with a look of deep disgust on his freckled countenance.

Thomas might have been inclined to believe all Britishers quiet and dignified, slow to reply, and deliberate in their movements. But young Smithers, holding a clerkship in a Calcutta silk house, somewhat like that held by Bill Johnson at home, was the liveliest mite of humanity Thomas had ever met.

He seemed to know everything, to be able to explain every difficulty. Thomas found it puzzling at first to understand his speech—he spoke of himself as a “clark” instead of a clerk; he said he received only “small pie” when he meant “small pay”; he called a trolley car a “tram” and an elevator a “lift”—but by looking where Smithers was pointing Thomas guessed right nearly every time he talked with him.

Exactly like a country visitor in New York, Thomas gawked and strained at the marvelously beautiful and imposing buildings in the section called “the City of Palaces,” to the evident delight of the young “clark.”

At first Thomas frankly held his nose in some alleys of the native district, called the Black Town, where Indians swarmed in low mud and rush hovels.

“Get used to smart smells if you plan to see the Orient,” advised Smithers, pointing up to some slowly wheeling buzzards drawn by some rotting carcass in the neighborhood.

“How can you stand it?” demanded the sickened American.

“Not much worse than the hold of an old ship,” Smithers remarked cheerfully.

“You’re right,” his companion asserted. “Only I’m not used to this. Can’t we get out of here quickly?”

The guide chuckled, dived under dark walls, and dodged round a few corners until Thomas breathed naturally again. Then he turned on the visitor from the western world with a bombardment of inquiries about his country.

Was the Statue of Liberty so great? How tall was the highest skyscraper? Had Thomas seen Niagara Falls? Had he ever met Charlie Chaplin? Did California look like India? Were there still any negro slaves? Did Thomas know any who had been slaves? Were the football teams better than British university players? Why did schools have such long vacations? How much could a ‘clark’ earn a week? Was Thomas a Republican or a Democrat? Would the United States ever join the League of Nations? Were American girls such good sports and playfellows? Why do your cities permit so many murders? How could a fellow get to be a cowboy? How did corn on the cob taste? And a hundred other questions that Thomas answered as best be could.

To save himself Thomas started a questionnaire of his own.

Where was Smithers born? How had he moved from Manchester to Calcutta? Why? How many different religions in India? What games did he play? Had he ever seen a religious war? A sacred white elephant? Could he speak Hindustanee? How much was a rupee worth? Would he rather live in England? Were polo ponies expensive? Why was lunch called ‘tiffin’? Had he ever been among the Himalayas? Had he ever had a sunstroke?

“We call it a touch of the sun.”

“What does it do to you?”

“Makes you balmy.”

Tom’s face showed his lack of understanding.

“Puts kinks in your brain, you know. Makes you soft-headed. Forget things—even your name. Sometimes for years.”

Thomas lapsed into silence. A “touch of sun” might have affected his father.

Smithers respected his retirement for a second, then launched into a series of hints about “carrying on,” as he expressed it, in strange cities of the East. Thomas never forgot the information that the peculiar, agile little fellow gave him. When that afternoon he saw the widening stretch of blue water between the racing mail liner and the stone pier where Smithers, with his legs squeezing an iron stanchion, was riotously waving a blood-red silk handkerchief in farewell, he felt a real lump in his throat at the thought that he might never see the likable chap again. That short association had made them feel like good old friends.

With all his familiarity with plans and specifications for ships, with all his visits to sailing and steam craft of all types and sizes, Thomas could hardly believe he was on a boat. The clean decks, the cool-smelling cork coverings in the passages, the compact light green cabins, the purring electric fans, the noiseless cabin and deck boys in thin silk costumes and brilliant head cloths, the soft-voiced staff of officers, and, above all, the speed of the enormous liner as she raced through the water—all this took his breath away. He felt enchanted.

On the second day he shook himself doggedly to throw off the spell of the ship and the effect of his hours in Calcutta. He had a purpose in making this long voyage. He must let nothing—no matter how entrancing, no matter how enticing, no matter how hypnotizing—make him for a second forget that purpose.

What had become of his father?

Men on this liner had been sailing to these same Eastern ports month after month for years. Some of them before that had idled about in the smaller cities. Many had, no doubt, skirted along the tropic coast, running in and out of creeks and bays. With changing routes and shifting crews, many deserting and as many being shanghaied, these men must have met thousands of others. And always, in ports or on cruises, except when sleeping, they had been spinning yarns of their experiences or silently listening to yarns spun by their shipmates and drinking cronies.

From some one of these travelers of Oriental seas and lands he must pick up some clew to direct his search, to save valuable time, to spare him from wasting effort and energy.

Back in the United States, the task, as he had talked it over continuously with the Johnson family or with Mr. Powell of the Peernone Importing Corporation, had not seemed beyond him. American cities are so close together. Governments are well organized. Races of citizens are much alike. But here——

He gazed down at the outlandish garb of the deck passengers. He listened to their babble of tongues and thought of their differences of history, life, religion, and occupation, and his heart sank. Plunged into the blackest despair at the hopelessness of his rash undertaking, he buried his face in his hands and almost wept. In some unexplainable manner the only thing he could see floating before his tear-moistened eyes was the rotating figure of the Eurasian boatswain cavorting through the air above the rail of the Portlander and dropping in a wide curve towards the water. In spite of his feelings, Thomas had to chuckle to himself; and, although there was a stinging feeling about his eyes and a salty taste in the corners of his mouth, he pulled himself together and began to think.

He rested his head in his hands, and the seething, gesticulating mob on the deck below him was shut out from his sight. In spite of his cool attempt to weigh accurately all the odds against him, he was a youth in whose heart trust in himself and in the good offices of other people was still strong. No boy who, in spite of all seeming drawbacks, is able to realize the first hopes of his life ambition can remain despondent for long.

His naturally buoyant disposition said to his feeling of insignificance in the immense universe and of weakness against the thousands of individuals he had seen in Calcutta and now on this dashing liner:

“You wanted to get even with Hanson for knocking Sven’s hat overboard. When you said that, what hope was there that you could do it? And what happened? Where did you get your hints? Yes, and a lot of help, too? Where you never could have expected it. From that Chink——” he checked himself. That was no way to show his gratitude for what he had received. That was no name to call an understanding helper. He corrected himself and went on:

“From that good old scout, the Chinaman, galley mate, Sing Ho.”

He raised his eyes and bored into the restless mob below him.

“My father may have watched just such people on boats in these Eastern waters, may have mixed with them, talked with them. Some one down there may have known him.” He corrected that thought. “May know him now—could tell me about him!”

He pounded with his fists on the rail.

“But which one? And how to find him? I may be missing the one chance in a thousand this very minute! What can I do?”

Talk to people! That was the only chance on a boat like this one.

He straightened with a new resolve.

Hurrying to the library he appropriated a thick layer of the ship’s largest writing paper, going out by the door farthest from the open eye of the steward. High above, on the sun-blistered and cinder-swept boat deck, he found the boatswain with half of his watch tightening tackle and bolts on the lifeboats and rafts. Edging close to the two men who appeared to be Europeans, Tom began to sketch the curves of the davits and the arrangement of the lowering gear.

If this sketching did nothing else, it passed the time, and it might give him and his office mates hints for ship drawings later. He could mail all the sheets home to Bill Johnson. Thomas was deep in the intricacies of a running slip noose, when he overheard a chuckling voice say:

“Ye should have washed yer face fer the artist, Mike.”

Thomas smiled back at the friendly grins.

“Not an artist,” he protested. “Going to be a ship architect.”

The two seamen sat back on their heels, an Oriental trick that Thomas noticed every one out here had mastered. It wrenched the muscles in his thighs cruelly when he tried it.

He held up his drawing for their rapt inspection.

Their eyes flashed their intelligent appreciation.

“Ye’ll then be wantin’ to see all the new handy gadgets we’ve got on this boat?” asked the first speaker.

“Everything on a ship,” replied Thomas.

“Then come look at this electric thing-um-a-bob for lowering lifeboats when the engine’s out of order and the hold’s full of water.”

Thomas listened to the explanation, wishing that seamen did not like so much to hear themselves talk. He waited for an opening to slip his yarn into the conversation.

“My father was a seaman,” he started, and plunged ahead rapidly to prevent any interruption. “That’s why I like boats. He used to sail these seas.” (To himself he commented, “You talk like an old salt yourself, Tom. Keep going!”) He raced along. “Little fellow; short; wiry; you know. But an all-round A. B. Maybe you knew him. French descent. Lived in Central America. Perhaps you thought he was a foreigner.”

“We’re all foreigners out here,” one of the sailors got in, while Thomas was snatching a breath.

“Ever meet him?” Thomas continued intently.

The two gazed at each other blankly.

“Seems I never did,” said one, his voice dripping with genuine regret.

“Now what did you say his name might be?” gently hinted the other, so gently that Thomas did not flush scarlet as he should have done at the reminder that he was not a good spinner of yarns.

“Dubois—Thomas Dubois; same name as mine.”

The slower-witted sailor struck the other on the shoulder.

“Didn’t we know him? On the old Capula, out of Java? French he was, sure enough.”

“Seems like I do remember a Frenchman,” the other agreed slowly. “What did we hear happened to him?”

“Wait, I’ll get it,” exclaimed the other. “Didn’t she go down near Tahiti with all hands aboard?”

The other nodded.

“All lost. I remember when I heard it as though it happened yesterday.” He wet his lips for a good long tale of this tragedy of the sea. “And it was twenty years ago——”

“Here, hold on!” Thomas sprang to his feet. “I’m not twenty years old. That couldn’t have been my father.”

“Guess not,” agreed the other, regretting his lost yarn of the sinking of the Capula with all on board. “And anyhow, I just remember, Jock, that Frenchman’s name was Chamberry.”

“Right you are! Remember how we called him Raspberry for short?”

“Excuse me,” said Thomas. “I’ve got to go below. This sketch is finished.”

The two seamen gazed after him.

“Well, all in all, the sinking of the Capula is a good yarn for travelers on this boat. That’s the first time we failed to tell it all the way through.”

“And it always,” sighed the other, “brought us at least something to smoke.”

“I wonder if all Americans are as businesslike as that.”

“Fine chance he has of learning anything about his father out here.”

They were right. The voyage to Penang produced dozens of valuable drawings of ship construction but not a hint of the fate of the long-lost seaman.

It was disheartening.

“Oh, well,” Thomas would comfort himself, “this is a crack ocean racehound. What would these fellows know of a hard-working young man on a freighter or a sailing vessel? Just wait till I get to the cities where we know he was!”

He learned that the Malay word for the betel nut chewed by the natives had long ago given the name to the island of Penang because of its shape, but he let all such dull information slide easily off his mind as the ship skirted the land and gave him his first glimpse of the fairylands of the Malay peninsula. The gentle slopes were densely wooded in vivid green from the white edge of the curling surf to the tree-clad peak. Boats and nets of the fisher folk were drawn up to dry beyond the bamboo fishing stakes. The steamer rounded a jutting foreland and made a bee-line for the main street of the city, as though it would go gaily up between its two rows of buildings. The harbor was dotted with bobbing lighters and tacking fishing boats, by Chinese junks and Indian cargo steamers. The liner came to rest in mid-channel while farther in rode the saucy coasters. Above the red and purple roofs of the town he marked the tall tower of the railroad ticket office.

Calcutta and the mixture of races on board this vessel had prepared him somewhat for the surprise of his first Malay city, but no anticipation could remove from that experience its startling shock. For hours—in spite of his resolution to go about his business at once—Thomas was spellbound; for minutes, disgusted and horrified at what he saw; and then, just when his feelings amounted almost to physical nausea, he would chance upon some little picture of unbelievable charm that enchanted him until the next disturbing event shocked him back to the disagreeable reality.

Surrounded by such sights and smells, Thomas had to exert all his firmness of will to pursue the single purpose for which he was in Penang. A few leading questions put him quickly on the track of records:—the sailors’ lodging houses, the registry offices, the employment bureaus, the city recorder’s office of vital statistics.

Clerks and department heads were attentive and courteous, but he discovered immediately that of all persons involved in shipping only sailors have the leisure to spin long yarns dug up from the depths of their experiences.

However, Thomas did learn one thing with certainty. The various records he had consulted could provide no actual news of when his father had been in Penang. He still had only the date of that last letter to prove that his father had been there at all. What he was able to carry away with some tiny satisfaction was that his father had not died there. At least there was no entry of the burial of any man bearing his name.

Everywhere the advice was the same.

“If he said he was leaving for Singapore, that’s where you ought to try to find him,” said a bespectacled old clerk, trying to relieve his heavy despair.

“You think I’ll learn something?”

“It’s a bigger port than this—one of the three largest in the Orient. They keep better records than we can ever hope to.”

Thomas brightened.

“Sounds reasonable,” he agreed.

“More experience there, too, in trying to trace people,” the old fellow went on.

Thomas looked inquiringly.

“Yes; more experience.” The clerk leaned over his table, with its legs standing in cans of water to keep the million ants from crawling to its surface.

Then, as Thomas got wearily to his aching feet, the kind old man dashed all his hopes to earth again.

“You know we call Singapore the ‘Port of Missing Men,’ ” he called after the boy at the parted mat flapping in the doorway.

If that was the reputation of Singapore, the possibility of picking up any trace of an insignificant individual, a single speck among the brilliant colors of the ever-changing mass of population, was remote indeed.

His desires made him want to fly to Singapore, but although he saw a few airplanes, he knew that they were privately owned by native millionaires. He would have traveled by train, but having computed his supply of ready money, he decided that a boat ticket would be the only sensible one for him to buy. The time-tables showed that he would arrive not very much later by water than by train. He had a look at the passenger trains. Knowing that he could not afford to travel in the first-class sleeping coach he was confirmed in his choice of ship by crossing to the mainland and taking a hasty glance at the second and third-class passengers.

While his popping eyes were following a lady in violet jacket and black trousers, with heavy silver bangles on her arms, her sleek head bandaged by a black strip studded with silver ornaments that tinkled as she waddled along the station platform, a series of wailing cries made him jump. Then he saw that the wails came from a pig. It was slung on a pole and was borne along by a family that was stuffing itself into the compartment of a day coach. At the next narrow doorway a middle-aged man in quilted coat, balancing a hat decorated by a demon’s mark and two pointed tabs that stuck out like a frightened rabbit’s ears, was directing the bearer of a wicker platter, all the while noisily sucking a delicate piece of sugar cane. This platter held the food for his journey,—a tastily roasted little pig, whose odor made Tom’s mouth water.

Crates of fowls and ducks were lugged into the coaches as personal baggage, with cooking utensils, bundled babies, and cans of oil. Yelling peddlers warned passengers to lay in stocks of firecrackers, fruit, roast sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and yams.

Porters in rags that disclosed raw sores bore bundles for girls in padded scarlet jackets. A tall slender woman in creamy silk was escorted by her father, whose age and rank were marked by five long white hairs swaying from his tanned chin and a disk of ivory flashing with inlaid gold on his chest. His blue jacket was of silk, stiff enough to stand alone, but his cotton trousers were as filthy as though he had wallowed in a roadside ditch.

Squealing bag-pipes, high-pitched fifes, tinkling bells, the resounding gongs of the train dispatchers, and the agitated barking of countless chow puppies and gutter pups reached their climax as each train rolled into the station or departed.

The passengers had with them not only all their mattresses, bedclothes, food, and cooking utensils, but all the live stock of the family as well. Those same people might be on his ship, but the ocean does sweep the decks with pure smells, and one can walk away from overpowering cooking when not confined in a train.

As the cranky, puffy little craft steamed from the harbor straight into the tinted mists of the setting sun, Thomas cast only a few glances and fewer regrets over the stern at the receding city. It had given him little except despair and distrust.

The first link in his outlined plan had snapped at the first strain. He had tried it and it had broken in his grasp. He hoped he would never have to cast his eyes upon Penang again.

The steamer was turning sharply to the south. The short twilight was being plunged into the deep night of the tropics. The ocean was sparkling with phosphorescent glow.

Somewhere down below was the city where he must risk all for success, or meet final disappointment.

In the gathering darkness Thomas strained towards Singapore with a determined expression on his face.